Survivor's Guilt
by SomewhereApart
Summary: Phoenix-verse. Regina has second thoughts about going through with their escape plan. For OQ Angst Fest Saturday, Prompt #23: I can't just sit by and watch you suffer


_**Author's Note:**_ _For OQ Angst Fest Saturday, Prompt #23: I can't just sit by and watch you suffer_

* * *

She's staring at her passport, wearing someone else's borrowed clothes, her face scrubbed clean.

They'd gone to great lengths to get their hands on this passport, to liberate it from the home she shares with Leo without him discovering that Regina is, in fact, alive and not dead under a smoldering pile of rubble like so many others. They've been watching the news for three days, nonstop it seems like. Watching the news, and talking quietly, and making plans to get her out of the city. Out of the country.

It'll be harder now, they'd agreed. Security is tight and taking a one-way trip with a fake passport isn't something they're willing to risk, so they'd had to get this one back for her. Had had to steal it (who knew charming, polite Robin had such unsavory friends?) with stealth and skill and without Leo noticing until they're long gone.

But they'd done it, Neal had done it, and now the moment of truth is here. They're supposed to be leaving, supposed to be driving South, borrowing the car Neal never uses anyway and heading down to Atlanta to meet up with another questionable friend named August who will be able to forge her passport, her birth certificate, anything else she might need to build a new identity.

She'll leave from Atlanta as Regina Mills, land in Marrakech as Regina Mills, and then Regina Mills will disappear. If Leo ever manages to discover her passport was used to leave the country, the trail will end in Morocco. She'll meet up with Robin's old friend Jasmine there and then head together for London using her fake passport and her new name. Her new life.

They have a plan, and it's time to get in the car. Time to go.

But they've been watching the news for days, learning the names and faces of the people who died in the buildings they'd narrowly escaped, and Regina just… can't.

"Are you ready to go?" Robin asks her, his hand as gentle on her back as his voice is in her ear.

Regina swallows thickly and says, "I'm sorry, but I don't think I can do this."

"Regina—"

"People are dead, Robin! Real people. People were _murdered_ in an act of terror—people we knew—and it seems unconscionable to pretend that I was one of them when I'm _not_. It's an insult to their memory." She shakes her head, drops her passport back onto Neal's cheap kitchen table and rakes her fingers through her hair. "I don't think I can do this."

She can see his frustration in the clench of his jaw, the flare of his nostrils, the tired tilt of his head—and she can't blame him, she supposes. They've had this conversation at least daily, and he always brings her around, but now… Now, it's real, and…

"If you stay, what are you going back to?" he asks, not unkindly, but very much like he knows the answer she's going to give. So she just scowls at him, and waits him out. He doesn't disappoint: "A man who uses you as a punching bag whenever you do something he thinks is wrong, or the day doesn't go his way, or… You've been gone for three days, after surviving something that—yes, you're right—killed hundreds upon hundreds of people. You haven't called, haven't checked in, and there's not a scratch on you so you weren't in hospital or trapped somewhere for days. If you go home right now, what will he do?"

Regina crosses her arms tightly over her chest; she knows the answer to that, and it involves a vice-grip on her biceps and raised voices, bruises she'll have to cover with concealer, and that slick, oily fear in her gut as she wonders how bad it'll be this time.

Robin knows it, too, or at least she thinks he does. After all, the bruises from the last time are still fading on her forearm.

He's touching her with gentle hands, now, rubbing up and down her biceps, cupping her elbows, asking, "Will he be so grateful you're alive that he overlooks all that? I'm asking, sincerely; I need to know. Because I can't just sit by and watch you suffer, Regina, and if he will hurt you, I…"

Robin shakes his head, and looks at her with so much imploring affection and concern that it makes her chest ache.

He's trying to help her. He's trying to save her from this hell she's trapped in. And she should probably let him, but…

"I know that this is ugly, and I know it feels wrong," he tells her. "But it's a way out. If you didn't want it, I don't think you'd have let it go this far. And I can't really speak for the dead, but I cannot imagine there's a single soul lost who would look at you and say, 'No, you should stay a punching bag for some narcissistic prick because your fake death offends.' You should live your life, Regina. You should have a chance at a life without fear or abuse. Those people, they died, but you didn't—you survived. So go _live_. "

Regina chews her lip, tears swimming in her eyes; blinking to clear them only lets the tears escape. He's right, she thinks. She could have a life somewhere, she could be free...

Regina wipes away the dampness from her cheeks, pushes down the pervasive guilt, and reaches for her passport again.

She grips it tight, looks at Robin, and says, "Let's get out of here before I lose my nerve."


End file.
